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Saeed Afridi's avatar

The pertinent need is not just to “restructure the power sector”, but in fact re-design the entire economic & governance system.

A vast majority of what you term as “zombie firms” (in almost every sector) are either owned/managed by the govt/state or its patronised entities (political, military & private-sector).

Hence, the decision-making & policy priorities are not to run economically sustainable sectors (& firms, zombies or otherwise), but to perpetuate their existence to ensure extraction.

The systemic sin here is the absence of any competitive internal markets (in almost all sectors) & the insistence on using the Govt as the single purchaser thus nullifying the process of price discovery.

Therefore, the govt isn’t falling into the ‘Concorde fallacy’, the fallacy is a policy tool to ensure continued extraction (from the people) & redistribution (to the patronised entities).

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Aamer A Khan's avatar

You should definitely write in more detail on this sector - especially your thoughts on how to deal with the issue of sovereign guarantees. No one in Pakistan seems to know how to go about it.

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